We put two concepts out there. One was technology that aggregated real time energy consumption data and presented the data in a town against town contest. The town that saves the most energy gets money to fix potholes. The towns that lose and save less energy know exactly who didn’t pull their weight Secondly, we posed the question, can utilities use social media to predict future consumption trends? We already use Twitter to get our news, can we use indicators of future activity (shows people will watch, events they will attend) to predict electric load? Utilities have an energy storage problem so the more they are right about future load the less dirty plants need to be fired up.

Then we noticed the scratch marks at the top of the door, someone was trying to rip the door off and then managed to get the latch open.

We went over to ask our neighbors and they said the bears go for the birdseed, some of which we (think) we had in the shed. Unless it was some other edible we forgot about. Or don’t consider an edible, like makeup from Anna’s kit.

Now I can ask spam bots simple math questions and turn comments back on. Good times. So i’m back, I think. Doing a lot of moving around with Anna, mostly on the east coast. Working a lot on GroundedPower with my friends, can’t beat that. Oh and looking to buy a used small-ish pickup if you have one kicking around.

I haven’t been keeping up with the Fire Eagle badge ever since I got my iPhone. There’s no ZoneTag for the iPhone and the Fire Eagle iPhone apps that are available just aren’t a compelling use case for my daily interactions. They feel forced. But i’ve been getting a lot of interesting emails from people using the badge and I just checked my access log. There are tons of people using the Badge. Very exciting. Here’s a great user story that reflects exactly why I put the badge together in the first place:

> I just wanted to thank you for the Fire Eagle Badge and let you know that I
> have what I think is a pretty interesting use case. My parents are sailing
> from their normal berth in Annapolis, MD to Florida and then on to the
> Bahamas this winter. I have been maintaining a blog for them with a map
> showing their whereabouts – updated in real time with their GPS coordinates
> via a cellular data connection. When they go offshore they will not have a
> data connection so they purchased a SPOT satellite messenger-
> www.findmespot.com – primarily for safety, but also for tracking. SPOT
> offers a proprietary shared map page, but nothing I could put on their
> blog. They do integrate with Fire Eagle, however, so I linked them to a FE
> account and put your badge on their blog so they can be tracked offshore as
> well.
>
> Anyways, thanks again. I’ll probably be tweaking the layout of the map in
> the coming days. I’ll be sure to let you knmow if I find anything
> interesting while playing.
>
> Sam
>

Thanks Sam!

You can see the blog here.

I have a jesus phone. I wasn’t planning on it or anything but an unstoppable convergence of events led me to the kool-aid. My N95 was getting pretty beat up (a couple of the keys were permanently recessed) and i’ve been itching to give iPhone development a shot. Then, when Anna and I were at the Apple store to buy a DVI to S Video/Composite adapter (Otis A/V media system!!) she said “Why don’t I get you an iPhone?” And I didn’t really know why she shouldn’t get me an iPhone, so now I have an iPhone. Just like that.

I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks but I think it’s made me a little stupid. Like forgetting how to find a parking spot on the streets of Brooklyn after parking in a garage for a few months. The iPhone is making me lose my edge. I now have a hard time working with interfaces designed by engineers. Which I guess is a compliment to Apple, except that the iPhone is going to make me slow. Maybe there is an app I can buy to screw up the interface?

Overall I dig it but I am not enamored with it. The browser is super dope as is visual voicemail and the location services but I have the usual litany of complaints (Flash, MMS, video, cut and paste, etc.) Also WTF is with running one app at a time? Such a bad call. That’s what I really miss about Symbian.

Since I am on my phone a lot more than my macbook, the convergence of my mobile and desktop interfaces has made me feel like my laptop is a giant phone. The iPhone is the closest thing i’ve used to the computers I use every day. Not bad.

The phone keeps on correcting ‘ooh’ to ‘pooh’. I don’t say pooh.

The past week i’ve been working with the Plodt team as part of the the Twitter Vote Report project. Lots of buzz words in the previous sentence. I’m pretty excited about it. On election day, people will be able to send in their voting experience via SMS, Twitter, iPhone, Android and voice. Good coverage. We in turn will localize and visualize the data showing polling place wait times, issues with voting machines as well as positive/negative experiences with the whole voting process.

Also this past Tuesday I was a guest critic in Family Feud Dennis’ Designing Around Place class at ITP. Lots of great projects and always nice to come back. Dovetailing with the Twitter Vote Report, check out one of the projects from that class, The New Vote with fancy custom mapping tiles.

A few weeks ago I went to Philly to watch Shawn do a live webcast in a Boston gallery. There’s now a review up here. Here’s hoping Shawn does more of these.

So we end up going down a country road to a yard sale where this Monty Hall-esque seller was more intent on getting rid of his stuff than making any money. Certain items had money squirreled away within them (paper money, not coins, he insists). If you buy those items you could end up making money on the deal.

We wanted two books and a blanket for $4 but if we bought this decorative bowl w/dipping tray for $5 (which we had no interest in), we could have the $4 worth of items for free plus whatever money was hidden in the bowl. We went for it and there was $2 hidden in the bowl. So $4 – $4 + $5 – $2 = $3 for 2 books, a blanket and this garish bowl. Is the bowl something? Should I bring it to the antique roadshow or “accidentally” forget it at someone’s house?

I take a photo and my location is updated on my blog. This will really motivate me to take even more photos as I am getting a tangible added value from photo documentation.

This would be nice to have embedded in Facebook, as an iGoogle widget or possibly something much more lightweight that you could embed with javascript anywhere.

Also, unrelated — Jake at Local Projects has launched his City of Memory project, curated stories from the five boroughs. I had a small hand in this project a few years back, well worth checking out.